Years ago, I rented every theoretical physics book I could get my hands on at the local community college. I was taking biology and Western Civ II over the summer to help fulfill requirements for my double major. So much time was spent laying on my childhood room floor reading book after book for class and from that never-ending library stack. Most of the information rushed past me, despite my attempts to organize it all on paper. It was because I read to prove that I could. It didn’t matter whether the information stuck, as long as I could untangle what I was reading within the moment I was reading it. I feared the quiet, and sped up as an opposing reaction.

I now spend so much time in silence, and this fear seems so far from me. I remember my foundations professor guarding the silence, making sure we drew our boxes and bottles with plenty of room for thought. What a powerful lesson.